d with angina
pectoris; and having left fifty pounds to each of the principal charitable
institutions of his neighbourhood, and fifty pounds to the churchwardens
of his parish, to be distributed amongst the poor professing the religion
of the Church of England, he is buried in his "family vault," and his last
wish fulfilled,--that is to say, his epitaph is composed in Latin, and the
inscription put up under the especial care and inspection of his friend Dr.
Dusty of Oxford. _Requiescat._
* * * * *
THE VILLAGE CEMETERY.
In the _New Monthly Magazine_, just published is a powerful poem--the
_Splendid Village_, by the author of "Corn-law Rhymes." from which we
extract the following passage:
I sought the churchyard where the lifeless lie,
And envied them, they rest so peacefully.
"No wretch comes here, at dead of night." I said,
"To drag the weary from his hard-earn'd bed;
No schoolboys here with mournful relics play,
And kick the 'dome of thought' o'er common clay;
No city cur snarls here o'er dead men's bones;
No sordid fiend removes memorial stones.
The dead have here what to the dead belongs,
Though legislation makes not laws, but wrongs."
I sought a letter'd stone, on which my tears
Had fall'n like thunder-rain, in other years,
My mother's grave I sought, in my despair,
But found it not! our grave-stone was not there!
No we were fallen men, mere workhouse slaves,
And how could fallen men have names or graves?
I thought of sorrow in the wilderness,
And death in solitude, and pitiless
Interment in the tiger's hideous maw:
I pray'd, and, praying, turn'd from all I saw;
My prayers were curses! But the sexton came;
How my heart yearn'd to name my Hannah's name!
White was his hair, for full of days was he,
And walk'd o'er tombstones, like their history.
With well feign'd carelessness I rais'd a spade,
Left near a grave, which seem'd but newly made,
And ask'd who slept below? "You knew him well,"
The old man answer'd, "Sir, his name was Bell.
He had a sister--she, alas! is gone,
Body and soul. Sir! for she married one
Unworthy of her. Many a corpse he took
From this churchyard." And then his head he shook,
And utter'd--whispering low, as if in fear
That the old stones and senseless dead would hear--
A word, a verb, a noun, too widely famed,
Which makes me blush to hear my country named.
That word he ut
|